"Alice in Wonderland," Spa Little Theatre, 12/10/06

SARATOGA SPRINGS â€¦Â
How did “Alice in Wonderland”
ever become such a popular children’s entertainment?

It’s surreal beyond description,
genuinely twisted, and not very
easy to follow.

Â C’est La Vie. Children have
loved it for years, while generations
have gone on to become parents
themselves, who only later in life
grasp Lewis Carroll’s more psychedelic intentions.

Â Home Made Theater is offering
Tim Kelly’s contemporary adaptation in its holiday kids slot â€¦ in a
charming enough production directed by JJ Buechner.

Â Kelly amplifies Carroll’s weirdest moments.

Â The Caterpillar, for example,
becomes a Bob Dylan fan, quoting

“Blowin’ in the Wind” between
what are quite clearly bong hits.

Â And the queens become caricatures of caricatures.

Â Buechner has fun and really lets
creativity fly, albeit not always in
the right direction.

Â The addition of a score (supplied
by sound designer Peter Kobor)
built on disco classics and ’70s TV
themes, for instance, makes the
proceedings more bizarre without
really adding any relevance.

Â Question is, is relevance really
necessary in “Wonderland?”

Â However wacky this “Alice”
gets, it is never less than a joy to
look at, due in large part to the
efforts of scenic designer Mary
Fran Hughes and Buechner and PJ
Duell’s fantastic costume design.

Â The real magic is in the cloth, as
Buechner and Duell have conjured
everything from turtles to chess
pieces with bright colors and pizzazz. They’ve also taken liberties,
dressing, for example, knights as
cowboys and Tweedledum and
Tweedledee as The Blues Brothers.

Â Sarah Ely makes her HMT
debut as Alice, and she does a fine
job of navigating Wonderland.

Â It’s really Ely’s responsibility to
steer the proceedings and she
makes sure she’s never upstaged by
all the insanity.

Â A huge ensemble tackles the
remaining roles, with standouts
being Amy Rosen as a robotic Red
Queen, Doreen Watson as a head-
hunting soul mama of a Queen of
Hearts and John Schmeiderer as a
briefly seen Cheshire Cat.

Â HMT’s Winnie Owen is also
memorable as the Mock Turtle,
while Ann Reidy’s Caterpillar is
hippie to the max.

Â Kids will certainly enjoy this
“Alice” even if they don’t grasp just
how strange it is.

Â And it makes a nice alternative to the holiday-themed fare of the
season.

Michael Eck, a freelance writer
from Albany, is a frequent
contributor to the Times Union.